What were they thinking: Triskaidekaphobians prepare

Many people suffer from triskaidekaphobia and so this coming year is going to be very difficult for them, but there is good news...

Do you suffer from triskaidekaphobia? If so, you are going to have a bad year. The word comes from joining together four Greek words – tris - three, kai - and, deka - ten, and phobia – which we all know. So, it is fear of things with 13 in them and we are about to start 2013.

But where does fear of the number 13 come from? It would appear to me that there have been just as many circumstantially bad things happen on every other date and so it has to be one of those things that are just put in the realm of superstition. Wikipedia notes that the earliest form of it may have been related to the Babylonian code of Hammurabi which was translated in 1910 and the 13th clause was omitted (which talks about death and outstanding debts) – even though they were never numbered initially. That seems totally hocus to me. Every other thing Wikipedia cites is equally unlikely to have created such a phobia and in quite a crazy manner, they then state other events that would appear to have happened before the one they say was the earliest reference – just going to show that you have to be very careful what you believe from Wikipedia.

However, 2013 will not be as bad as 2012 in one respect. To add to the unlucky 13 is the fact that many other think that when it falls on a Friday it is even worse. Some even call that friggatriskaidekaphobia, Frigga being the name of the ancient Scandinavian goddess after whom Friday is named. Each year contains at least one Friday 13th and 2012 had the maximum possible number – three. In comparison, 2013 has only two – September and December.

For two countries this is good news. It appears that Italy and Tibet consider 13 to be a lucky number!

I know I am looking forward to a great 2013. How about you – why do you fear 13?

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The thirteenth is actually a lucky number. It represents the number of times the moon cycles through the sky. Just think how much easier it would be to have a calendar of thirteen 28 day months instead of trying to remember which months have thirty-one, thirty, twenty-eight or twenty-nine days.
The fear of 13 is irrational and unsubstantiated.
Just my opinion,

@Erebus, re "...thirteen 28 day months...." Yes it would be a lot easier...though we'd still have to have an extra day somewhere to make up 365, and we'd still have to have leap years.
And @Max, shouldn't they be called Triskaidekaphobes?

Thirteen was rejected by all the fools who embrace "the tyranny of twelve", which makes things go by the dozen when other quantities would be far more convenient. And all of that was done long before we had the metric system to further complicate things.

Erebus,
The Jewish calendar actually does work like that, but it isn't so simple and needs corrections to prevent it drifting away from the seasons. The Moslem calendar is similar, but without the corrections, so it drifts throughout the solar year. Neither are an accepte international standard, so are effectively useless. 13 is not considered unlucky in Judaism, by the way.